


Tampholysis

by Klarkom



Series: Liliana and the Doctor [1]
Category: Magic: The Gathering (Card Game)
Genre: Dominaria, F/M, post-mending
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-13
Updated: 2019-10-13
Packaged: 2020-12-14 13:00:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21016178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Klarkom/pseuds/Klarkom
Summary: After the War of the Spark, Liliana lies low on her home plane of Dominaria until she comes down with a mysterious illness.





	Tampholysis

Summer was the worst time to be ill. It had its good days, but Liliana couldn't appreciate a golden afternoon or a firefly-lit evening if she was wracked with aches and pains. When the temperature climbed, and the air lay stagnant and humid, and Liliana was exhausted from sickness, it was all she could do to lie in a tub of water and curse her body for betraying her like this.

Healing was the first magic Liliana had learned - purging intruders from the body and knitting damaged flesh back together. The Forward Order couched their methods in euphemisms, but their work wasn't that different from necromancy - commanding flesh to behave. The difference was all in the flesh's attitude about it.

So Liliana could dull the pain in her hips with a thought. If she was exhausted after a full night's rest, she could conjure adrenaline. If open sores appeared on her thighs, she could command them to close. But after a few weeks, she found herself spending an hour addressing her symptoms every morning, only for them to return by mid-afternoon. Controlling them was too tedious - she needed to pull the illness out by the root. For the first time in decades, Liliana would need to see a doctor. She searched New Benalia and the surrounding lands, but there was no one who could identify her ailment. "Bleeding measles," they said. "Nasty, but it'll clear up in a few days." No, Liliana would tell them, it's been weeks and I'm still sick. Get bed rest, they told her. Drink plenty of water. Take this salve, that draft, this ointment. Nothing prevented the return of her symptoms.

As summer gave way to autumn with no progress, Liliana realized she must have fallen ill on Ravnica. She couldn't expect a Dominarian doctor to understand a Ravnican disease - she'd need to go back to Ravnica. The city was still recovering from Bolas's war, and if the locals recognized Liliana as the necromancer who'd commanded his undead army, they'd be out for her blood. But it was a big city, and most of them hadn't seen Liliana up close. She could handle herself.

After yet another unsuccessful visit to a doctor, Liliana took her carriage back towards town, but she stopped along the road in a secluded spot to planeswalk. (Vanishing into thin air was best done in private.) She recalled parts of Ravnica far away from the war zone - a beach where the Golgari jetsam harvesters dredged up bones from the sea. It was a nasty place, and hopefully one where no one would expect her to be.

Focusing on the foul beach made Liliana's head spin. The Blind Eternities pressed down on her like a wall where once a doorway had been. No - the door was still there, Liliana just didn't have the strength to push it open. Her breath came short, and each cough clawed her lungs, pulling her down toward the Dominarian soil. After a solid minute of fighting to push through into Ravnica, Liliana's vision went black.

When she came to, she found herself slumped on the seat of the carriage, still on Dominaria. Blood seeped through her skirt from the open sores on her thighs.

That was an issue. But was it her sickness that prevented her from planeswalking, or something more? The only way to find out would be to consult another planeswalker.

Liliana couldn't go to Teferi, or Karn, or any other big name on Dominaria because they knew her role in Bolas's war and would try to kill her, or at least be of no help. She did know one man who had a latent spark - a two-bit grave robber from Urborg who she'd crossed paths with five or six or ten years ago. Liliana had sensed Will's spark but had said nothing because he did her good staying where he was. Now it would do her good to let him know.


End file.
